Pictures of You and Me
by Alex Freakin' Way
Summary: Drabbles and one-shots about the newsies. Some slash, some not. Mostly Spot/Race, Blink/Mush, Jack/David.
1. Arm Wrestling

**Arm Wrestling**

A/N: This is probably my favorite thing I've written out of the Newsie fandom... feedback would be lovely!

Tony Higgins watched as Sean Conlon arm-wrestled Jack Kelly. Normally, he'd go around and take bets from the large group gathered around, but today he was content with just watching. Anyway, he knew who'd win. He looked around, not finding Sean and Jack's constant attempts to best the other amusing. He eyed each boy watching the arm wrestling match with interest. David Jacob, Ryan Ballat, Michael Meyers... each boy looked amused. Tony didn't see why. Two natural leaders, Sean and Jack seemed to have a constant battle over who was the strongest. And the arm wrestling always ended the same. Each boy had things they were good at, and one excelled at arm-wrestling. It was a wonder they always tried to change the outcome.

"Yo, Race!" someone called out. Tony turned his head to see Jacob Evans walking toward him.

"Skittery." he said evenly, returning his gaze to the match. Beads of sweat were starting to pop out on Jack's forehead. Sign number one. "You owe me. Bluejay's won."" he stated calmly. Skittery rolled his eyes.

"That's why I'm here. Here's your damn money." He tossed fifty dollars into Tony's lap, and Tony let himself smirk. Jack's eye twitched. Sign number two.

"Pleasure doing business with ya, Skitts." Tony said, counting the money in his lap. Skittery scowled at him as he left.

"What's his problem?" David asked, obviously not having been paying attention. Tony shrugged.

"Just glum and dumb I guess. Hey, Sean. I love you." his voice never wavered. Sean slammed Jack's fist against the table.

"Love you too." Tony smiled.


	2. Song Drabbles

Sprace Drabbles

The Time it Takes to Fall (Sprace)

Racetrack sat down and put his arms around his knees. He looked at the rain pouring down outside the window. He winced as he thought about what Spot was doing. He really shouldn't care. That was when Jack and David came in. They're trying to be all secretive about their relationship, but it wasn't working very well. Not when David stayed over and they shared the same bed. At least they knew they liked each other... okay, this was getting old. He shouldn't have fallen for him, but he hadn't really had a choice. All he needed was a kiss, then it would be put out of his mind. Or possibly a drug. But he knew he wouldn't get either. So he would probably never be quite okay. He lay down on his bunk, and sighed. Maybe sleeping would make it better... but it never did.

All Star (Sprace)

I got told once, that I was nothing compared to the world. That I wasn't that smart, and therefore I would end up failing at life. They were probably right, except they forgot one thing. I got street smarts. That's really all that matters to people like me. I could be anything I wanted... hell no. I could never be a banker or anything like that. But I was the king of Brooklyn. I was a star among the newsies. That was what should really matter. Race sat by my side one day, and I couldn't help asking.

"Why are you fine with just being nothing?" I asked. Sure, it was kind of mean, but all my life I'd wanted to be something big.

"I got you. I don't need anything else." he said, smiling softly. I felt my cheeks flush, and then I turned away. If only he knew how much being something meant to me, he wouldn't still feel that way.

Strange (Javid)

When Jack became a scabber, I couldn't believe it. He was my best friend, the person I trusted beyond everything and he had turned his back on us... on me. Later, we were talking about it. We were sitting on my roof, a common spot for us to be when we weren't working.

"Was it... ya know... better?" I asked, wondering. He pulled me into his arms, something that had become common between us when no one else was around. He held me close to him for awhile.

"No. It was strange. It was like... there was this perfect world and I could have been a part of it. But I'd have to change so much about me. And I couldn't." he said. Then he smiled down at me.

"And I missed you David. I found out then, that life just isn't worth it if you aren't there." and that made me realize that I loved him. Honest to God love. I think he felt it too. We looked at each other for awhile, and then he let me go. I didn't back away. Instead I smashed our lips together. With him, it could be a perfect world. And it wouldn't be strange. Not at all.

Dead on Arrival (Sprace)

I could never say no to Racetrack. Anyone else, I could shoot down easily. But I never could to Race. It was just... he mattered more then anyone else. I don't know why, but when he came over one day talking about how they were going on strike, I instantly chilled. I knew I didn't want him to be a part of it. It could turn ugly easily. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was dead set. He had looked at me, his eyes shining.

"Please? I promise I won't get hurt." and I could never say no.

"Fine. But at the first sign of trouble, we're coming to help you."

"Perfect. Jack's going to come asking for help anyway."

"Well, I can't let him know how weak I am.. at least when it comes to you. So, I'll probably say we'll think about it. But only if you think about not doing it. Or else Brooklyn says no."

"Fine, I'll think about it. But you know me. The thought of a fight's too much to resist." Yeah I knew him. I knew he'd be all too happy to help. But I could never say no to Racetrack.


	3. New Jersey, a silver spoon, and a letter

New Jersey, a silver spoon, and a delayed letter.

Sean sat tapping his silver spoon against his cereal bowl, annoying his little sister. She stopped shoveling sugary cereal in her mouth to glare at him about every five minutes.

"Sean! Stop it!" Sean smirked and shook his head. Finally, their mother walked in. She took Sean's spoon out of his hand, and glared at him.

"If I can't even trust you alone with your sister for ten minutes, Sean Conlon, how am I supposed to trust you to go on the trip with your friends?" she asked, rolling her eyes as Sean slurped his cereal. Sean looked up, and shrugged.

"Because Tony isn't as annoying as Lisa." he stated, making Lisa stick her tongue out at him and stomp out of the room. His mom sighed, and took his bowl from him too. He jumped up, and she turned around to look at him.

"Be careful, Sean. It's hard, sometimes, remembering you're all grown up. Especially when you act like you're Lisa's age. But you're sixteen, I understand. You can go with your friends for the week. Just don't make me worry about you." Sean nodded, and hugged her.. something he'd rarely done since the age of eleven.

"Okay mom. I'll be fine. We're just going to New Jersey to stay in one of Tony's relatives places. His mom will be in the state too." his mom sighed, and nodded. She was a single mother of two, Sean and Lisa's father running out on the family shortly after falling in love with his new boss. His mom still wasn't over it, and had gotten a bit overprotective of Sean. Not that he blamed her. He was the man of the house now. And he kind of hated his dad for it.

When Tony picked him up, Michael and Ryan were already in the car. Sean got front seat, making Ryan whine a bit. Sean loved Tony's car. It was a convertible, and a bright red. Tony was proud of it, and Sean always got to ride in the front seat. It was enough to make Sean smile. Michael was talking about how Jack and David couldn't go, and that made Sean realize that the majority of the time it was just going to be he and Tony hanging out. Ryan had already reduced Michael to snuggling up beside him. Great. Not that he really minded. Alone time with Tony wasn't a bad thing, really. It could just get... awkward sometimes.

"Isn't a family of Italians having a summer home in Jersey kind of stereotypical?" Sean asked his best friend when Ryan and Michael had fallen asleep against each other. Tony rolled his eyes.

"Yeah. But it's nothing like the Jersey Shore. Trust me. Sometimes I wish. It can get boring. But we're not gonna be at our house. We're going to be at my Uncle Paulo's. Trust me, you think I'm rich? Wait till you see his house. It'll be fun." Tony stated.

Finally, they arrived at a house that made Sean gape.

"Oh my God. You weren't kidding. This is like, the size of all the apartments on our block!" he got out of the car, and was dazed as Tony handed him his stuff. Ryan and Michael were quiet with sleep, but Sean could see the amazement in their eyes as well. Tony just looked slightly embarrassed. As they entered the house, Sean knew he had been right. The entrance room was bigger then his apartment. And this was a **summer** home. Tony showed them their rooms, and then they all collapsed. It was dark, and Sean lay in his room looking around. He wondered what it'd be like to live like that all the time. Then he drifted off to sleep, wondering what Tony was thinking about.

The week was spent at the beach, mostly. It was on the day before they were supposed to be home, that Tony and Sean were sitting in the tv room watching the Godfather (Tony's uncle had them all. Sean found this suspicious.) and Ryan and Michael were at the beach (Sean had thought Michael was tan **before**) that the door bell rang. Tony met Sean's quizzical look with a shrug, and went to answer it. He came back holding a letter.

"Sean! Guess what!" he seemed excited, so Sean decided to humor him. He paused the movie, and turned to face him.

"What?"

"This letter is from like, fifty years ago. They just now found it, when they built a new post office." he stated, staring at the letter in his hands. Sean had to admit, that was kind of exciting.

"Is it to your family?" he asked, standing up to look over Race's shoulder. Race nodded.

"My grandpa. He's been dead awhile, so it's not wrong to read it right?" he asked his best friend. Sean shook his head. He wanted to see what it said just as much as Tony did.

"Do you recognize who it's from?" he asked. Tony scanned the name, then shook his head. Then recognition dawned.

"It's my grandma! I forgot she hasn't always been a Higgins..." with that, Tony opened the letter. It was a sappy love letter, about how his grandmother couldn't wait until she could see his grandpa again. Tony was smiling, a really cheesy grin, and then looked up at Sean.

"Wow. That's so cool. I mean, this was before my parent's were even thought of." he stated, walking away from Sean into a different room. Sean followed him, more out of annoyance of being left behind then curiosity, and saw Tony place the letter on a desk. He then turned back to Sean.

"They were our age when they got married. That letter was from that year, I think." he stated. Sean raised his eyebrow, keeping quiet. Tony sat there, biting his lip.

"They were sixteen and in love. What would you do if I told you I might be too?" he asked his best friend. Sean shrugged.

"Hope she wasn't some greasy Italian. Your family has enough as it is." His voice didn't show that he was actually hurting.

"What if I told you they weren't Italian. Irish actually."

"Well, then it seems you finally sunk to lowering yourself to a dating leprechaun in hopes to be the tall one in the relationship." Tony sighed, looking agitated, and shook his head.

"You're an idiot." then he had shoved Sean up against the counter, and kissed him. Sean wasted no time in kissing back. When they finally pulled apart, Sean smiled.

"Well then. I say we spend the last night in style." Tony rolled his eyes, but pulled Sean off to his bedroom.


	4. a laptop, string, and a maid

a laptop computer, string, and the maid

"Would you stop messing with that string?" Anthony Higgins asked the boy sitting on the bed beside him. Sean Conlon looked up, and smirked. Annoying Tony was one of his favorite things to do, especially when Tony was trying to concentrate on something. His face would get all scrunched up, and his tongue would stick out of his lips. Eventually, he'd become so interested in whatever he was doing, that he'd forget everyone else in the room. Sean hated being forgotten about, especially when it was just he and Tony in the room. So, he would come up with some way to annoy him. He'd know it was working, because the tongue would pop back into his mouth, and his face would slowly smooth out. Then he would turn around, and snap at his friend.

"No." Sean answered calmly, putting it back over the keys of Tony's laptop and pulling it slowly across. Tony's fingers twitched from where he'd been trying to type his paper. He finally sighed, after sitting there tense for a few minutes, and looked over at his best friend.

"What do you want?" he asked crossly. Sean always wanted something. Whether it be a cherry popsicle or something crazy like a roller coaster in his backyard. It seemed Sean could never be content with what he had. That was one of the reason's he spent so much time at Tony's, or at least thats what the Italian assumed. Tony's family had more money then Sean's, something Sean and he never actually talked about, and it was just the unspoken rule that they hung out at his place.

"Attention." Sean stated, leaning against the short Italian boy. Tony sighed, but slowly put away his laptop. The paper would just have to wait. He should have known he wouldn't get anything when Sean was beside him.

"Well? I'm all yours. What do you want?" he asked. Now, Tony was normally a pretty smart guy. He thought he could read people pretty well. But he did not expect what was to happen next at all. Sure, he'd wondered sometimes, what it'd be like but... well, when Sean first kissed him Tony did nothing short of freaking out. He tensed up and pushed Sean away.

"What the hell was that!" he asked, touching his lips with two fingers. Sean shrugged.

"Me entertaining myself." was all he'd say. Tony watched him, and then decided that he liked the way it had felt, kissing Sean. And it had only lasted about a second. Before he over thought about it, Tony leaned in and closed the distance between the two of them. Sean didn't freak out, which Tony had expected because Sean never freaked out, and in fact kissed him back. Tony had been right. This was nice. Very nice in fact. He wondered why they hadn't decided to do this sooner? It certainly would have solved the problem of being bored. Just when Tony was really getting into it, the door squeaked open.

"Mr. Higgins?" Tony shoved himself away from Sean, and almost fell off the bed.

"Erm, yes?" he asked, as Elizabeth, the Higgins' maid, entered the room carrying a handful of Tony's clothes.

"I just have your clothes... you're red. Are you feeling okay?" she put the clothes on the bed and felt Tony's forehead. Tony blushed brighter.

"I'm fine just... excited. Um, thanks." the maid nodded, and left the room. Tony turned to look at Sean, who had already gotten ahold of the string again. He sighed. Sean looked up and smirked. Tony got back out his laptop, and the process started all over again.


	5. Frost

He never thought about what it'd be like to be leader.

Cowboy was good at it, and honestly, he didn't want to be one.

He could barely keep himself out of trouble, let alone all of the boys. Race took care of himself, and that's all he knew what to do. He wasn't the type that could make decisions on the spot, instead he thought them over for a day or two. A day or two could be a day or two too late if others lives depended on the answer. So no, he never wanted to be the leader.

But when David came, Racetrack couldn't help feeling just a little jealous. He easily moved past the spot Race had held since Cowboy had became leader, and became Jack's second. Race didn't honestly mind that. Third was still good enough that the boys listened to him when he had something he needed to say, and he got alone time. That was one of Racetrack's favorite things. He loved to go out, sit by himself, and smoke. His smoke breaks were when he could think about everything that was going on. As he sat, the winter morning cold enough that he wished he owned a pair of gloves, he thought about what he'd heard that day. No, he didn't want to be leader, but it had been nice knowing that he was the second. Knowing that he was, in fact, important. Racetrack took a drag of the cigarette, and blew the smoke out into the sky. It mixed with the fog his breath made, and spiraled upwards.

Racetrack decided to stop thinking about it. David was smarter then he was, smarter then he could ever hope to be, but honestly, Racetrack was fine with that. Race was proud that he could read, without ever being formally schooled. That was better then some kids he knew. Instead, he thought about that pretty blonde that had bought a paper from him. She had eyes that reminded him of that flower... which one was it? The pretty blue one that he had sometimes seen in Central Park. He couldn't think of the name. Maybe he'd ask David one day, but probably not. He knew he would only see the girl again if she bought from him. It was unlikely, and even then she was obviously out of his reach. She had smiled at him though. Out of all of the newsies, Racetrack was not the most charming. No, that would go to Jack. Racetrack would get dirty glares all the time, especially once a buyer would realize that he had made up quite a bit of the story. He would leave soon after, just in case they demanded a refund (which some people have done. Race was glad he was a fast runner.) and would start the cycle again on another street.

He had money in his pockets, enough to eat. This wasn't really as unusual for him as it was for some boys. He gambled away most of his money, but he always won just enough to keep him alive. Most would call him a gambling addict, but Race thought differently. He wasn't addicted to the gambling itself. He sure wasn't addicted to losing his hard earned cash. What Race was addicted to, was the feeling of being in control. The feeling that with just one good card, he'd have enough money to live for another week, or another day. But there was a bad side to it as well. Just one mistake, and he was out of money for the lodge house. Out of food for a day. Racetrack refused to beg for anything. He would accept food from the nuns every morning, but only because he was, when it all boiled down to it, a Catholic. When he was out of money, he was out of money. He was used to a night in the streets, or going a couple of days without anything more then half a roll and some coffee. Racetrack wouldn't become some charity case.

His hands were starting to shake with cold. Maybe one day soon, if he played his cards right, he'd be able to afford some gloves. The nice kind, not like the ones Mush had been conned into buying. The kind that would keep his hands from turning blue with frost when he took his smoke break every night. He jingled the money in his pocket, and smiled. Yes, maybe one day soon. He put out his cigarette, and shoved his hands inside his vest, trying to warm them. He headed back into the warmth of the lodging house, and back into the noise and chaos.


	6. an iPod, onion rings, and an call

an iPod, onion rings, and an unwanted phone call.

"Jessica Northridge called me again last night." Sean stated, popping an onion ring in his mouth. Tony looked up from the iPod he was messing with, and raised an eyebrow.

"Another love confession?" he asked, finally picking a song and hooking the iPod onto the speakers. Sean nodded.

"Something like that. Seems to think I'm going through a phase. She mentioned something like "It's just like girls and horses!" Do girls have a stage where they think they're in love with a horse?" he still had bits of onion ring in his mouth. Tony grimaced.

"How the heck should I know? Finish your food, idiot."

"Don't call me an idiot, shorty!"

"I'm not short, jerk!" Tony shot back, changing the song. Tony was a notorious song hopper. He went and sat on the desk that held his computer.

"So, when are you going to give in to one of these many suitors?" he asked.

"I'm not. God, girls are creepy." Tony laughed, and leaned over to kiss Sean's forehead.

"Good."


	7. Because he is

Everyone assumes that because he is Mush, he can't get angry. No one ever bothers to ask him if he's okay, because everyone assumes the answer will always be yes. No one cares enough to watch him closely, just in case there might be something wrong. Because he is Mush, and nothing is ever wrong.

Because he is Mush, he can only laugh and crack jokes. Whenever he tries to get mad about anything, he is ignored, or worse, laughed at. As if that, too, is just a joke. Mush doesn't like being treated like he has no feelings. Everyone has feelings, even the young newsies who would rather laugh then cry. Who can hide the pain with a joke.

But no one ever bothers to ask, so Mush never bothers to tell.


End file.
